New CEO: Starwood spinoff 'best of both worlds' for timeshare business

More than 2,000 jobs will stay in Orlando after a Connecticut-based hotel group announced the timeshare portion of its company will spin off and remain headquarted here.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. announced Tuesday it will form a new publicly traded company, Starwood Vacation Ownership. Because its employees already are located in Orlando, leaving the region did not make sense for the company, its leaders said.

"Orlando is the headquarters for the industry," said Matthew Avril, who was named the new company's chief executive officer. "It's a great market. It's an important market for the product."

Avril, 54, is no stranger to the Starwood brand. He retired as the hotel group's president in 2012. Stephen Williams will continue to be the company's chief operating officer.

"This is the right time for us to spin off our vacation-ownership business and move Starwood forward in its asset-light strategy," said Frits van Paasschen, the company's president and chief executive officer, in a news release Tuesday.

Avril said a bulk of Starwood's business is managing or franchising hotels. The company, which has more than 1,200 properties to its name, only owns 5 percent of the hotel rooms globally, he said.

Starwood stockholders will get stock in the new company once the spin-off is complete. Avril expects the process to finalize at the end of the third quarter or the beginning of the fourth.

The timeshare company operates 22 timeshare resorts including properties in Hawaii, Mexico, Orlando and the Caribbean.

Avril said the spin-off is the "best of both worlds" for the timeshare business. It allows the company to keep access to Starwood-managed hotel brands and affords the company to continue developing.

Under the spin-off, several hotel-group properties, including Sheraton Vistana Resort and Sheraton Vistana Villages in Orlando.

Last year's fourth quarter ended on a strong note, said Starwood officials. Starwood's vacation ownership revenues in 2014's final quarter reflected a 15 percent increase over the same period a year earlier.